


Loki's DIY Guide to Getting What You Want

by havetaoque



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Chitauri - Freeform, Dreams, Fluff, Frenemies, Frustration, M/M, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, PTSD, Pining, Stealing coffee, Visions, best laid plans, bumbling, fighting aliens, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-10 11:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13500564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havetaoque/pseuds/havetaoque
Summary: Loki has a vision of his future during his time in captivity by the Chitauri that gives him hope -– in it, he’s with Stark and he’s happy and in love. It may have been only a fever dream, conjured up by his brain to cope with the torture, but it felt real and Loki is desperate enough for love to go looking. But how do you make your dreams come true?





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter is Tony's POV. The rest will be Loki's (mostly).

Tony froze with the smoothie halfway to his mouth when he saw an exaggerated shadow on the staircase cast by what could only be a golden horned helmet. A moment later, Loki stepped off the stairs and stood just outside the reinforced glass doors.

“Stark,” he said. And promptly fell over.

“Shit,” Tony said. He gave the smoothie back to Dum-E, who accepted it grudgingly, and called his suit. He marched over to the doors and yanked them open, immediately aiming both repulsors and his short-range missiles at the prone god. “Alright, Dasher, I’m not playing any of your games.”

“Sir, his vital signs are registering severe trauma,” JARVIS said. “I’m not sure he can hear you.”

“Great,” Tony said. He powered down the repulsors and gripped one of Loki’s shoulder guards to turn him over. The god came away from the floor with a faint sticking sound and fresh blood welled beneath the fingers of Tony’s gauntlets.

Of course, he could just leave him there. Maybe not _there_ , but out on the landing pad, perhaps. Heimdall or whatever his name was could suck him up in the Bifrost or maybe he could coax Clint back to the Tower to eat Loki’s liver once a day. If he hadn’t been in the middle of an intelligence war with Fury and SHIELD, he might have considered just handing Loki over and washing his hands of the whole mess, but Tony was a little spiteful and more than a bit bitter lately, and well, he wasn’t exactly doing anything exciting in his empty Tower.

So that’s how he found himself awkwardly carrying Loki in the suit toward his favorite metal table to bleed out on.

He grabbed a taser (just in case) before stepping out of the suit. Loki was still bleeding heavily. The golden accents on his armor shone red with his blood, and despite the fact that he was an enemy, Tony was deeply unsettled to see the god bleed. Loki was supposed to be above such things as bleeding. Or maybe Tony had just grown tired of seeing injuries; maybe it was because this was Thor’s little brother. It didn’t matter. Tony slid his fingers along the seams, looking for where the armor was secured. The shoulder plates came off easily once he found the hidden buckles, but the black chest piece would not budge, and from the blood that coated his hands when he tugged at it, Tony guessed the worst of the injuries lay somewhere nearby.

In the end, he had to cut Loki out of his leather coat. Tony laid the ruined garment on one of the swivel chairs and hoped the god wouldn’t be too angry – or at least, not angry enough to do him bodily harm.

Tony took his shears to Loki’s blood-soaked shirt and tossed it in the bin. He sucked in a breath and winced when he saw what lay beneath. Loki’s chest was purple and puce and mustard. There was a deep gash that bisected his chest, running raggedly from his hip to his opposite shoulder. It was hot to the touch and red where the edge of the chest plate had been pressing into the wound.

Dum-E rolled over and held out the smoothie. Tony didn’t need them anymore, but he never refused Dum-E’s offering. He took a sip, accidentally smearing some of Loki’s blood on the metal cup, and patted Dum-E’s claw arm.

“Think you can grab the antiseptic for me?”

Dum-E rolled away to fetch it.

“Please don’t wake up and slaughter me,” Tony muttered, as he flushed the wound with a saline solution. Dum-E returned with the antiseptic and Tony wiped down the edges of the wound, wrinkling his nose at the iodine smell. Loki’s fingers twitched on the table, but he didn’t wake up.

Belatedly, Tony removed the horned helmet. He stuck it on U’s camera. U swiveled to look at him, camera light blinking rapidly from inside the helmet to express his displeasure at being reduced to a hat rack.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said, smiling slightly. “JARVIS, scan?”

“Scanning, sir. He is showing signs of healing, but his heart rate has dropped significantly. He may go into shock.”

Tony frowned down at Loki’s unconscious form. “Don’t go into shock, Loki,” he said sternly. "I am going to stitch you up now. Please, please, please don’t kill me.”

It had been a while since he’d done this. It had been a while since he’d taken care of another human – or humanish-looking being – in a while. Without the team to fuss over and build things for… He shook his head; that was a road he promised himself he wouldn’t go down.

Even stitches now, Tony reminded himself. Skin is a lot tougher than it seems. On the battlefield it’s paper-thin; on the makeshift operating table, stubbornly thick. Well Loki _would_ be stubborn about this, Tony thought. He doubted the god would allow Tony to help him, had he been awake. Maybe that was his game all along – ask for help without asking for help and deny having consented to getting help by being unconscious. What a cop out. Tony snorted. And he must have known Tony wouldn’t hand him over to SHIELD. The bastard. Had he been spying?

Well, if there was one thing Tony loved, it was keeping secrets from Fury, and he had quite a sizable secret lying half-naked on a table in his workshop. This was a secret worth keeping, Tony thought.

 

“Sir, Loki is awake.”

Tony climbed out of bed and stumbled down the stairs to his workshop. The god lay on the floor, groaning in pain and flailing his limbs inelegantly in an attempt to right himself. Ah, painkillers wearing off, Tony thought, smirking as he took another second to watch Loki flounder.

“Hey, hey, you’ll pull out your stitches,” Tony said, walking over and looking down at the god on the floor. Loki stopped moving and stared up at him, eyes slightly unfocused.

He looked less like a god of chaos and more like a confused kitten, and Tony thought, this must be the Loki that Thor still sees. It didn’t last of course; Loki’s gaze sharpened as his body fought off the last of the painkillers and he fixed Tony with a furious, indignant expression.

The bruises on his chest had begun to fade and the infection had gone from the wound. Without the initial surprise of seeing the god and stitching him up, Tony just looked. Loki watched him warily in return.

The gash had just missed Loki’s navel, which rose and fell with his shallow, rapid breaths. Dried blood had crusted on the waistband of Loki’s trousers, which Tony thought looked itchy and uncomfortable. He should have wiped it away the night before.

“Are you going to help me up, or are you going to contemplate my navel all morning, Stark?” His words were as sharp as his green gaze, but when Tony met his eyes, it was defensiveness, not aggression he saw. It did not make him relax, though; one might easily become the other.

“I didn’t think you wanted my grimy mortal hands on your eternal flesh.”

Loki rolled his eyes and held his chin up as Tony wrapped an arm around his waist to help him to stand. They stood chest to chest for a moment. Loki swayed a bit and Tony reached out automatically to steady him.

“Why did you come to me?” Tony asked, after the growing silence made his rapid heartbeat all the more apparent.

Loki looked at him, and thought in sudden panic, _I don’t know_ _(what to do)_.


	2. Chapter 2

_Four days earlier_

At some point, Loki realized Thor was not coming for him. How could he when he had watched Loki die on the sands of Svartalfheim?

Some part of him still believed that if Thor was there, everything would be okay. Even when Thor made the situation worse, they still got out, and Thor recounted the tale to Sif the Warriors Three while Loki stood in the corner, watching from the shadows. It was a reliable pattern, a pattern he had come to expect, however begrudgingly, like the turn of the stars.

But predictability was so _boring_. Wasn’t that what he always said? Rhythms were useful for inspiring a false sense of security, for creatures – no matter the species – were creatures of habit. Civilizations rise and fall on habits and rhythms, brought down by the very workings that engendered them because it is far easier to persist in the same well-worn path than to stray and blaze the trail anew, no matter the vicissitudes of change and time. Odin was like that. He was unchanging, living as though he were at war still, raising his golden son to value only warcraft to the neglect of all other studies. The wars had been waged and won and now Asgard was full of empty-headed warriors with no wars to fight and no notion of diplomacy.  

Loki didn’t trust predictability, and yet he could not escape the way it tugged at him, offering images long-craved but now unreachable: waking up each morning for magic lessons with Frigga, riding in the evenings with Thor – just the two of them, visiting Midgard and watching their battles, hearing the men and women shouting Thor’s name on their raids. Loki missed all of it and felt foolish; nothing ever lasted. When he was confident in his ability to look beyond and thwart with mischief the rhythms of life that caught the Aesir in a single, strong current, when he had achieved this intellectual superiority of expecting the unexpected, reality was all the more jarring.

He realized, then, that rhythms really were inescapable, for he had fallen prey to one of his own making, even as he resisted it. And the raised lines covering his blue skin beneath the Asgardian illusion he wore were an indelible reminder of his own naiveté.

So Thor would not come. That would alter the pattern.

 

The days were long on this planet. Loki had not bothered to count. When he was first captured, he anticipated breaking free in a matter of days. Starting a tally would be a sign of capitulation and Loki was not the type to kneel.

The guards changed at regular intervals. Food was brought in once a day, or so Loki assumed. His wounds were reopened by various torturous means each time he was taken from the cell. He didn’t scream.

The only alterations in the routine that he could discern were those to his own body, namely his wounds and his weakening state, the pallor of his skin, the purplish pinpricks creeping up and down his arms. Iron-deficiency, he knew. When he had been in captivity for only a few months and still hoped he might escape, he had tried licking his shackles. It was a desperate hope; the iron-age was long-gone for this planet. Had he been in something as primitive as irons, Loki would have repurposed them into garrotes for this captors.

“Get up, prisoner.”

 

The pain was worse this time, somehow. Loki hadn’t thought it could get worse. Somewhere between the cold rocks and the feeling of claws prying into a barely-healed wound, Loki lost consciousness.

 

_The fairy light was back again. Loki reached out to it, but it darted away, glowing softly. Loki had dreamed of the light many times before, but it always fled just out of reach. This time, though, there was a laugh and something landed half on top of him. Loki’s arms came around it automatically, which would not do at all because that left his belly exposed to whatever had attacked him; he should draw his knives. But he couldn’t feel them in their sheaths – couldn’t even feel the leather at all._

_The fairy light bobbed up again, closer this time, and Loki still hadn’t moved his arms. He was going to be gutted by this creature. It was heavy and smelled like cedar, but it wasn’t a tree, it wasn’t rough, and he wasn’t in the woods, as far as he knew. Loki hugged it against his chest – another decidedly poor survival tactic when faced with an unknown assailant. It burrowed against his neck, scratching his skin in a way that tickled, and Loki felt laughter threatening to escape his chest. By the way the creature moved in his arms and squeezed him, Loki might have guessed it meant to strangle him, yet he didn’t shove it off._

_The light was gone again, pressed between the creature and him. It sighed in his arms and murmured something, vibrations against soft skin._

_Loki dragged his eyelids open, fighting off sleep. His left arm was numb where Tony lay on it, dozing. As he blinked, the room began to take shape – the familiar lines of the bedposts, the darkened tinted windows of the penthouse bedroom. Loki loosened his grip on Tony and propped himself up on an elbow to look at him. Tony’s face was mashed into the pillow, one closed eye visible against the ridiculous Star Wars pillow case._

_“I would burn the world for you,” Loki murmured, stroking a finger against Tony’s cheek, “but I know you’d prefer it if I just didn't burn your toast.”_

_He chuckled and got up, wrapping a robe around his shoulders as he headed to the kitchen._

 

Loki woke up in the darkness and not even the pain of his latest wounds could compare to the emptiness he felt when he realized he was still in a Chitauri cell.

It had been vivid; if it weren’t for the physical pain slowly creeping back into his awareness, he might have mistaken the dream for reality. But oh, how real it had felt. The warmth, the intimacy, the— it was unfamiliar. All so unfamiliar to him, and yet for those brief moments he had held the warmth inside him and been held in return.

Loki had heard of seers going mad from the visions they witnessed, and he began to feel something stir inside him that had lain, he supposed, extinguished. A tendril of power curled in his belly. It wasn’t something as sentimental as hope, no.

No, it was a fierce longing that, for once in his life, was within his grasp. If he didn’t act now, the warmth would be gone forever, he knew it.

He told himself he would never, under any circumstances, reach for the ice. It was a part of him he denied, a part of him that had controlled him his entire life and he none the wiser: the very last thing he wanted in his captivity. But the warmth was tempting, and it was beginning to fade. Far better to cut it off himself than to feel it slip away as one more thing beyond his control.

The shackles shivered as frost crept over them, sinking into the metal, turning it brittle. They burst apart from his skin and Loki leapt to his feet, binding his dripping wounds with ice magic. Power coursed through him and he knew it wouldn’t last long. He was tiring already. He tore through the guards that came to his cell with claws and shards of shining ice.

 

_Now_

Stark had asked him a question.

_“Why did you come to me?”_

When Loki had broken out of the Chitauri cells and made his escape to Midgard, he hadn’t exactly had a plan in mind. Planning seemed almost like moving a stiff joint; he had given up scheming months ago, sinking into the prison rhythms that promised endless cycles and no hope. His escape had been pure survival, pure instinct, and now that he was back in a (relatively) civilized realm, the old rules applied – the rules from _before_. And Loki understood that; he knew he was free to plot and cause mischief and travel among the realms again—so why couldn’t he move? _What are you waiting for_ , he asked himself, _an order to leave your cell?_

The vision had left him with an emotional overload that was just beginning to crash as he stood in front of Stark. This Stark was different. He didn’t look like he wanted to cuddle, in fact he looked kind of suspicious and like he wanted to reach for the little electric weapon on the workbench beside them.

Had he made a mistake? Loki was sure the vision had been real; he was determined to make it real. But as he looked down at Stark, who stared back at him, still waiting for him to answer the question, Loki realized he didn’t love the man in front of him. He didn’t even know him. All he knew was that this mortal was a sort of prince by Midgardian standards, tended toward arrogance, was incredibly brilliant, and not very heavy to pick up.

Defenestrating the man you want to love was not a great starting point, Loki had to admit. Well, he would try not to do that this time.

What should he do? How did one secure the devotion and affections of another? He had never loved anyone before, except Frigga and Thor and, once, Odin, but those relationships were different and he could not remember the origin of that sort of love.

Thor was always going on about the importance of honesty and loyalty. Loki had scoffed at the former; lies were so much more fun. Besides, if he couldn’t trust very many people in Asgard, why _should_ he tell them the truth?

Ah, trust. That was it, wasn’t it? Stark did not trust him (didn’t even like him, probably), and Loki did not trust Stark. He would have to establish trust.

Loki flinched violently.

Stark lowered his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking confused. “I didn’t mean…” He took a step back.

Loki lowered his arms to his sides again, stricken at his own reaction. He had not even noticed Stark move. Stark would think him weak.

“I’m sorry about your clothes,” Stark was saying. He went over to a chair and lifted the leather coat up a bit. “I had to get it off you to stitch you up.”

His manner was suddenly very subdued, Loki noticed. Stark’s voice had taken on a softer tone, less business and accusation.

“It’s fine,” Loki managed.

Stark nodded and shuffled his feet a bit. “Good to know. I am one hundred percent good with no murdery... stuff.” He glanced at Loki. “Okay, I’m gonna ask again: what are you doing here? I would threaten to call SHIELD, but JARVIS and I are kind of on hostile non-speaking terms with them, and it’s not like they could contain you anyway. I mean, normally. You look a little…sorry, what happened to you? Did Asgard do this to you?”

“No,” Loki said, words feeling like tree sap in his mouth. “I…left with Thor. He thinks me dead.”

Stark gave him a considering look that was a bit too canny for Loki’s liking. Loki thought it odd that Stark did not mention the Avengers. Surely they would want to give their input on Loki’s appearance. Barton would probably like to take a shot at him, and the Widow would likely do the same. Loki would not blame them, but he did not wish to begin by killing Stark's friends.

“Come with me,” Stark said abruptly. He turned on his heel and headed out of the workshop. Loki looked around cautiously, but followed. Two metal creatures rolled anxiously from side to side on the workshop floor. One was holding a fire extinguisher.

Stark had his back to him: that was a sign of trust. Loki lengthened his stride to catch up.

They climbed the staircase and took an elevator up to a small atrium. Stark walked up to a device by the door and waved his hand over it. The door unlocked and Stark held it open.

“You can stay here for a bit. Just hold your hand up to the pad to open the door. It locks automatically. I promise I won’t come in.”

Loki looked at him uncertainly. “What are you doing?”

Stark rolled his eyes. “I am offering you a place to stay. Not permanently,” he added. Loki would have rolled his eyes as well, had he met Stark under different circumstances. Instead, he just stared.

At his silence, Stark huffed a quiet sigh. “Look, I don’t really know you aside from… you know. And I can’t say I like you very much based on our history. But I’ve seen that look before because that was me a few years ago.”

“I’m fine,” Loki hissed. He didn’t want anyone’s sympathy; he didn’t want anyone knowing his humiliation or how his body was betraying him, acting without his awareness. He wasn’t in danger anymore. Not like before.

But weren’t people supposed to open up and share their feelings with each other when they were in love? Isn’t that what people with trust between them did? Loki wasn’t sure he liked the idea of baring his pain to another, in fact, it terrified him. What was he without his secrets and his illusions? The second-rate prince nobody wanted, exposed to the world as an inadequate son, a disappointment, and a monster. How could anyone love that? Surely, they would not.

“Look, I’d much rather have you in the Tower than rampaging around New York again. So, I repeat: door’s open if you want it,” Stark said, dropping his hand. “If you need anything, you can ask JARVIS. I’ll be in the workshop.” _Drinking_ , Loki thought he heard Stark mutter, as he watched the elevator doors slide shut behind the mortal.

Well, he certainly had not expected that.


	3. Chapter 3

“Where is everyone?” Loki asked, creeping into the dark kitchen. Stark squawked and spun around, coffee sloshing out of his mug.

Loki just raised an eyebrow.

“Geez, Loki,” Stark said, setting the mug down on the counter a little forcefully. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Why are you awake and why are you lurking? We’re going to need to set some ground rules.”

Ground rules? So Stark planned on letting him stay a while. Loki sniffed in Stark’s general direction. He crossed his arms in irritation. “You’re hung over.”

“Ten points to Slytherin,” Stark muttered.

The kitchen was otherwise silent as Stark slurped his too-hot drink.

Impatient, Loki asked, “So?”

“So what?”

“The spirit in your tower informed me that the Avengers no longer reside here.” He may have asked specifically about a certain green monster, but Stark didn’t need to know that.

Stark shrugged as though the question mattered little. Ah, so there’s a story here, Loki thought. What could have split them up? They were such a sickeningly heroic team –

“It was kind of a big deal. Global. Actually, I’m surprised you haven’t heard about. Unless you did and you’re just asking to rub it in.”

Loki made a “go on” gesture and took a seat at the kitchen table, which had the effect of making Stark do a double take, as though the sight of Loki doing something so non-murderous was an affront to his mortal sensibilities. Loki huffed. He didn’t just go around murdering people; that would be uncivil.

Stark took another sip of his drink and launched into a boring laundry list of the events Midgard had termed the “civil war” between the good Captain and Iron Man.

So there was plenty of hurt still, bitterness, and emotional vulnerability. It was obvious that Stark was desperate for companionship. Loki had guessed that earlier. Stark wouldn’t have invited him to stay in the Tower if his friends were still about. The excuse about his potential ravaging of the city was weak, as there was really nothing standing in Loki’s way if he were overcome with the sudden urge to switch all the little Midgardian traffic lights to green and amber or level a city block. He’d need to recover a bit more for the latter, but it was not out of the range of possibilities. Stark was talking about some sort of legislation – boring. Loki took a sip of coffee.

People in Stark’s state were easy to manipulate. His words proclaimed his aloofness, his so-over-this, his it’s-fine, but Loki had not spent the majority of his life loathing his own existence to not recognize it in another.

Stark mentioned something about spiders and then the detached point-by-point narration turned into a monologue and then a rant. Loki listened to Stark vent his frustrations, fascinated by this glimpse into the mortal’s inner life. As the story became less orderly, with Stark’s tangents and various details, the boring facts of the matter – the official story for Midgardian media or what he repeated to himself to dismiss his feelings -- gave way to _Stark’s_ story: night terrors, misunderstandings, coffee grounds in the sink, casual demands for new equipment. That’s what Loki wanted. He could read any number of Midgardian newspapers for the information Stark had begun with, interrogate any mortal he might happen upon, but those methods would tell him very little about Stark. No two beings experienced a thing in the same way. Loki knew that all too well.

“—found one of Clint’s arrows under the couch the other day, and he was such a dick, and I just want to stop caring, but I can’t.” He paused for air. “Why am I telling you all this?”

“Some would say it’s liberating to speak of one’s troubles to a stranger,” Loki replied dryly, taking a sip of coffee.

“You’re not a stranger. You’re just strange,” Stark said, crossing his arms as if to reel in the emotions that had gathered around him.

“’Neutral third party’ then,” Loki amended, rolling his eyes. “May I have some more of this?”

“Sure,” Stark said, getting up. Then, “Hey, wait, that’s _my_ coffee you’re drinking! How did you…? You know what? Forget it.”

 

Loki headed back to his rooms. The sun was coming up, but the windows in the bedroom were tinted full dark. Loki made a small fairy light, like the one from his visions, and sat in the middle of the bed, staring at it in his palm. His first impulse, when Stark had begun spilling his mortal heart out, had been to look for openings to take advantage of, but Loki instead found himself unwillingly identifying with this mortal. How…sentimental. The word tasted odd on his tongue.

He could, of course, still use this newfound connection to his advantage. Perhaps he could win Stark away from the Avengers to his side, encourage him to leave them behind as they had left him. Oh, wouldn’t Thor like that, to see his own shield brother at Loki’s side.

The blue light pulsed gently in his palm. He tossed it and let it float around the room.

The option was there: he was certain he could form a partnership with Stark. But the vision had been different. Loki hadn’t felt the usual anxiety he had when there was the need to stay on his toes to maintain alliances, constantly offering something up to ensure loyalty. Nor had there been the empty feeling of obedience to him, which wasn’t a challenge at all. He quickly grew tired of such relations.

No, Stark required something else entirely. The problem was, Loki wasn’t sure he was ready to open up in return. His true nature was monstrous, something Stark surely would not want.

Then Loki had a solution, a solution that would put an end to his miserable hoping and give him closure. Who knew if the vision was a true vision? It was looking more like a fever dream every second, but there was a way to test it. He _had_ to know.

Three things Loki knew: One, no one loved Frost giants except other Frost giants (and even the Frost giants he’d met hadn’t seemed to like each other very much). Two, Loki would not allow himself to fall in love with someone who was disgusted by his existence. (That was, perhaps, not quite in his control, but he liked to think he wasn’t _that_ pathetic). And three, since no one loved Frost giants, and Loki was a Frost giant, no one would love Loki.  

The most honest reactions were those of the unprepared. Thor had said the “Jotun thing” did not trouble him, and yet Loki had perceived his involuntary shudder at the sight of his blue skin and blood red eyes. He believed Thor was sincere in persisting in his love, but Loki could not wipe the sight of the shudder from his mind, and it would always have a bitter taste.

So he would appear before Stark in his true form and observe his looks. If Stark but blanched at the sight of him or showed any sign of revulsion, Loki would leave and scour the evil vision from his brain until only wisps remained (for he knew he would never entirely forget it). And then, he would know at last, with certainty, what he had known all along to be true.


	4. Chapter 4

Eventually, Loki had to leave his rooms if he didn’t want to starve. It seemed as though Stark had given him free rein. The tower spirit – JARVIS – informed him that the mortal was in his workshop – that he had in fact been there for the last four days. That was somewhat troubling to Loki. He could last a few days with very little food, but he doubted Stark could, and from what he’d observed the last (and first) time he’d been in the workshop, the only sustenance down there was various bottles of hard liquor and whatever ingredients the mechanical creature used in its concoctions.

Loki had passed those four days in various degrees of calm, fury, and self-loathing. It turned out that shedding his Asgardian glamour was not a simple task. In theory, he needed only to concentrate (as he would for any other spell) and will it to happen. The trouble was that Loki did not will it enough.

Loki spent the first two days meditating, recalling the lessons of his early magic training. He needed to quiet his mind to feel his powers. On the fourth day of failure, Loki punched the mirror, tearing some of the stitches in his chest, and watched his own reflection shatter and fall upon the floor like deadly chips of ice. The resemblance only frustrated him further. How inadequate. He, a great mage, a talented shapeshifter, could not even assume his own _natural_ shape.

He had done it before, and not so very long ago, so why could he not do it now?

 _Isn’t it obvious?_ he thought. Nearly a year of captivity and torture, of being reduced to a beast, had brought it on. _That is the natural disposition of the Jötnar,_ my _natural state._

The ice had been creeping close beneath his skin in those last months with the Chitauri, threatening to get out. Loki kept pushing it away. It was the last bit of control he possessed on that barren rock.

He did not feel unsafe in Stark’s tower though. He felt warm and secure and protected. The Avengers were gone and would not be returning any time soon. Stark had not turned him in (not that he could, and he knew it). He even thought that Stark might grow to like him, though he quickly shut down that idea, not wanting to place so much hope in the vision yet.

He had sufficient motivation to change his shape to test the vision. He _needed_ to see Stark’s reaction. Yet willing his appearance to change went against all of his instincts. It reminded him of when he first tried walking through solid objects. He knew the spell and he’d seen Mother do it, but it was _wall_. He was going to crash straight into it!

 

Loki passed through a few walls on his way to the kitchen, muttering curses each time. Maybe if he started thinking cold thoughts...

He pulled open the door to the freezer and stared into its icy depths. A container of some sort stared back, proclaiming its name to be both Jack _and_ Jill.

Well it was cold. Loki picked it up and held it against his cheek. Maybe this would stimulate something within him to turn blue.

“Hey, uh, you alright there?”

Loki barely suppressed a shriek and pulled his head out of the freezer, cold container still pressed against his cheek. He tried to put it back on the shelf but

 _Damn_.

Loki smiled uncertainly at Stark and leaned his elbow against the open freezer, aiming for casual and hoping the mortal wouldn’t notice the box was frozen to his face. He blamed the shock of getting caught like this – he wasn’t ready to reveal himself yet!

“Did you bash your face on something? I can get you an actual ice pack…” Stark offered. “Or, uh, you can just use that too,” he added when Loki still hadn’t moved. “You are okay, though?”

“Yes, perfectly well,” Loki replied, jaw growing a bit stiff. Damn these nervous ice crystals!

Tony narrowed his eyes a bit, spying the freshly healed cuts on Loki’s fingers. But then he straightened and glanced around the kitchen awkwardly, empty coffee mug dangling from one hand. “Okay, well, great. I’ll just be…going now. Eat all the ice cream you want.”

When Stark was gone, Loki used his other hand to grip what Stark had called the ice cream and ripped it off his face. He felt the tender skin of his cheek and checked his reflection with a simple spell.

Still not blue.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he's getting there!


End file.
